Bell Canada, the company charged with operating Canada's do-not-call list, has been slapped with a record-breaking $1.3 million fine for making unsolicited calls - breaking the very law it is charged with administering.

Bell Canada paid the largest-ever penalty Monday after admitting it tried to sell its Internet, telephone and satellite services this year to Canadians who had either registered their phone number on the federal watchdog's do-not-call list or Bell's internal list, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission said.

Bell was given a five-year contract in 2007 to operate the CRTC's do-not call list. It is responsible for registering Canadians phone numbers, providing telemarketers with up-to-date do-not-call lists and receiving complaints about telemarketers who breach the rules.

"You'd think the guys who ran (the list) knew the rules, wouldn't you?" said the Consumers' Association of Canada's Mel Fruitman.

Fruitman called the large fine "a good public relations move" for the CRTC after it took flak for failing to crack down on rule-breakers.

The CRTC levied 29 fines since launching the list on Sep. 30, 2008.

Until last week, $195,000 in penalties had been levied but the federal regulator had only collected about $10,000.

That changed Friday, when the watchdog announced telemarketing giant Xentel had paid fines of $500,000 after admitting it called Canadians on behalf of organizations that were not registered charities.

Fruitman believes the large penalties won't change a thing for Canadians routinely attacked by pesky telemarketers.

"Most of the calls that we get are still from small companies operating in Canada who purport not to know about the do-not-call list or are here-today-and-gone-tomorrow once they are found out," he said.

CRTC's chief telecommunications enforcement officer, Andrea Rosen, said after receiving some 350,000 complaints in the past two years, she is not surprised many companies, like Bell, are making "mistakes."

In a separate probe, the CRTC found Bell unlawfully used automated calling devices to contact its prepaid mobile customers before obtaining their prior consent.

Bell did not admit the error but pledged to stop making the calls and offered Concordia University a $266,000 donation.

There are approximately 8.9 million phone numbers registered on the do-not-call list.